On one occasion I walked up an extra flight of steps and it wasn't until I looked the door and thought "That not my door!" that I realised. I was tired. Another time I heard some trying to unlock my front door. It was the upstairs neighbour. He apologised when I opened the door to see what the heck was happening, [ . . . ]
So, basically I can understand how this happened. Or at least how she got in.

I notice, however, that in neither of those cases did anybody get shot.

I can easily understand how she might have gotten as far as an open doorway, or even a bit into the apartment: either the door was unlocked for some reason (I don't know what the area's like, or what the attitude was of the person who got shot, but leaving the door unlocked while home and expecting somebody isn't unusual in some places); or the lock was faulty; or, hearing somebody rattling at the door, Jean opened the door for her.

What I don't understand is why, once the door was open, she didn't immediately realize it wasn't her apartment. Confusing the two doors doesn't puzzle me. Confusing the two interiors, even presuming the same apartment layout, is what puzzles me. Even if the furniture's the same or similar, people arrange furniture differently, decorate the walls differently, etc.; and usually the furniture itself is different.

If the answer is that she was too drunk to tell, then she really, really shouldn't have had her gun on her. If you're going to get that drunk, disarm yourself first!

-- RichardM, that doesn't sound like useful training to me; at least, not unless combined with a session in which the person who jumped out was an innocent customer trying to run out the door, and there was discussion afterwards. -- I wonder whether they didn't think of that possibility, and actually did want you to start shooting even though you didn't know who had jumped out or whether they had a weapon?

Dark Blue, do you have a comment on that training? You'll know a lot more about it than I would, though of course you're not likely to know the specific course and instructors RichardM had.

It's not absurd when nearly every time we have a police shooting of an unarmed person we have the powers that be saying that procedures and training were followed. Or when we have officers being fired for not shooting people.

What I don't understand is why, once the door was open, she didn't immediately realize it wasn't her apartment. Confusing the two doors doesn't puzzle me. Confusing the two interiors, even presuming the same apartment layout, is what puzzles me. Even if the furniture's the same or similar, people arrange furniture differently, decorate the walls differently, etc.; and usually the furniture itself is different.

If the answer is that she was too drunk to tell, then she really, really shouldn't have had her gun on her. If you're going to get that drunk, disarm yourself
first!

How about exhausted after a long day? I’ll dig up some studies if you want, but being tired can be like being drunk. How long was her shift and how much had she slept before?

As for not recognizing the apartment, there are at least two more possibilities I can come up with:

1) She didn’t turn the lights on, just walked straight to the bedroom where, oh crap, she found the victim maybe coming to the door in his underwear (or whatever) to see why it sounded like someone was in his apartment.
2) The victim is as bad about keeping his place clean as I am, in which case she thought her apartment had been ransacked by a burglar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardM

Avril, you are completely wrong. Please review these Use of Force policies and see which ones say shoot first, ask questions later.

I'd go with a charitable 90+% wrong. There are circumstances in which I have no doubt police are trained to react—to shoot first with no time for questions, even when it turns out the suspect is unarmed. But only a very obtuse, perhaps even intentionally dishonest interpretation, would then translate that into a general statement that police are trained to shoot first and ask questions later under most/all circumstances (or not ask questions at all, just gun down dark-skinned people for kicks, because F the Po-lice, right?).

Does Texas have a "Stand Your Ground" Law? Because if the guy in the apartment came after her, she could shoot him and claim self defence.

It may not convince a jury, but it may.

Yes, Texas apparently does have a stand-your-ground law. However, it applies to people who had a legal right to be in the location in the first place and did not provoke the victim (in my understanding, the former, at minimum, is a typical restrictions on such laws). I.e., Texas Penal Code ch. 9, subchapter C, 9.31(e) "A person who has a right to be present at the location where the force is used, who has not provoked the person against whom the force is used, and who is not engaged in criminal activity at the time the force is used is not required to retreat before using force as described by this section." (bolding mine)

Thus, in my understanding, it would apply to Jean, had he shot the armed intruder in his home believing he was in danger, but not to an intruder who had illegally entered his home even if Jean attacked them. The officer might have thought it applied to her when she fired, but since the law is written on the basis of whether the person has a legal right to be in a place, not whether they think they have a legal right to be there, I wouldn't think that her misunderstanding counts for anything legally (letting people claim a stand-your-ground defense when they're the intruder who shot the actual legal occupant by claiming confusion seems like it would thoroughly erode the protections it's intended to provide).

I'd go with a charitable 90+% wrong. There are circumstances in which I have no doubt police are trained to react—to shoot first with no time for questions, even when it turns out the suspect is unarmed. But only a very obtuse, perhaps even intentionally dishonest interpretation, would then translate that into a general statement that police are trained to shoot first and ask questions later under most/all circumstances (or not ask questions at all, just gun down dark-skinned people for kicks, because F the Po-lice, right?).

When police officers shoot people under questionable circumstances, Dr. Lewinski is often there to defend their actions. Among the most influential voices on the subject, he has testified in or consulted in nearly 200 cases over the last decade or so and has helped justify countless shootings around the country.

...

A string of deadly police encounters in Ferguson, Mo.; North Charleston, S.C.; and most recently in Cincinnati, has prompted a national reconsideration of how officers use force and provoked calls for them to slow down and defuse conflicts. But the debate has also left many police officers feeling unfairly maligned and suspicious of new policies that they say could put them at risk. Dr. Lewinski says his research clearly shows that officers often cannot wait to act.

Dr. Lewinski and his company have provided training for dozens of departments, including in Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Milwaukee and Seattle. His messages often conflict, in both substance and tone, with the training now recommended by the Justice Department and police organizations.

And one of the Supreme Court justices agrees with this interpretation of things as they stand now. From Sonia Sotomayor's dissent in Kisela v Hughes:

Quote:

The majority today exacerbates that troubling asymmetry.
Its decision is not just wrong on the law; it also
sends an alarming signal to law enforcement officers and
the public. It tells officers that they can shoot first and
think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable
conduct will go unpunished. Because there is nothing
right or just under the law about this, I respectfully
dissent.

Having read the events according to the interpretation "most favorable" to Hughes (definitely had a knife, definitely did not respond to commands to drop the knife, definitely started towards another person with the knife in front of officers) I’m not sure how this case supports yours. The dissenting justice appears concerned by the precedent granting a summary judgement in favor of the police (because they were so obviously in the right) may set, not so much the actual outcome of the case or the state of police training.

It's not absurd when nearly every time we have a police shooting of an unarmed person we have the powers that be saying that procedures and training were followed.

There is nothing about that that proves that officers are trained to shoot first. And those incidents which you are referencing are a small fraction of police encounters and doesn't include the thousands of incidents that happen all the time where use of force or decisions to shoot or not have occurred and don't make the news. It is ridiculous to base your understanding of what police are taught based on a few high profile incidents that make the news.

I've read a number of articles on this incident, both today and back when this incident occurred, and in what I've seen all claims that he got fired for failing to shoot in this incident are made by former officer Mader. The department claims there were several incidents that led to his termination for failing to meet probationary standards. So it's a bit of stretch to definitively conclude that was the specific reason he was terminated.

Quote:

And one of the Supreme Court justices agrees with this interpretation of things as they stand now. From Sonia Sotomayor's dissent in Kisela v Hughes:

All respect to Justice Sotomayor, but she was a part of the dissent not majority on this case so it seems most of the other Justices disagree with her interpretation.

She is also not an expert on police training.

This on a case where the police responded and when a person approached a third party to within lethal range, they drew and issued commands for the person to drop the knife instead of shooting first. The officer shot upon her after she did not complying with the commands.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thorny locust

Dark Blue, do you have a comment on that training? You'll know a lot more about it than I would, though of course you're not likely to know the specific course and instructors RichardM had.

Scenario training is excellent training, particularly force on force training as it helps to simulate the stress of an actual situation, and help officers learn to function and make decisions in those stressful conditions.

What RichardM describes sound maybe like an orientation/demonstration type of situation that was part of his CERT training program to help him better understand the stress these types of circumstances can generate. Still I think feedback should have been provided as to what actions he took that were positive and negative and how it could be handled better.

In general when we do scenario training you go through and then are critiqued on your actions, and if it was warranted you receive remedial training and go through more scenarios to ensure you understand and respond to the training provided. If if you did a good job, you still have to be able to explain why you took the actions you did, and there are usually suggestions for ways it can be improved or at the vary least other options or other things to consider. Also many times scenarios don't have a single right "answer"

I'd go with a charitable 90+% wrong. There are circumstances in which I have no doubt police are trained to react—to shoot first with no time for questions, even when it turns out the suspect is unarmed. But only a very obtuse, perhaps even intentionally dishonest interpretation, would then translate that into a general statement that police are trained to shoot first and ask questions later under most/all circumstances (or not ask questions at all, just gun down dark-skinned people for kicks, because F the Po-lice, right?).

And even then in every situation the officer has to still make an evaluation of what they know and what they are presented with before pulling the trigger. There is not a "shoot first" ask questions later rule.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avril

Here is some documentation for you via the New York Times.

Documentation of what? A person's opinion on a guy who provides testimony on use of force cases? Still nothing to prove your shoot first training statement.

I quoted the part where he and his company provide the training to do these things in multiple cities across America, which backs up the claim I did make, rather than the one I was imagined to make, that this is what training is provided in "much of the United States."

I quoted the part where he and his company provide the training to do these things in multiple cities across America, which backs up the claim I did make, rather than the one I was imagined to make, that this is what training is provided in "much of the United States."

You provided a quote that says he/his company has provided training to dozens of law enforcement agencies. Of course it doesn't say what he has taught.

I have heard of his company. At a conference I attended once someone from his company spoke. I looked at their training classes and don't see any where they teach any use of force classes and to my knowledge they do not offer any classes in use of force. Looking at their current roster of classes I see their basic certification course, a de escalation course, a social medial class, a counter terrorism speaker, and a person speaking on interviews with people who have assaulted officers.

Not withstanding that "dozens" does not qualify as the vast majority of the United States, it doesn't support your claim that police are precisely trained to shoot first.

I never said "vast majority." I said "much of." Is your definition of "much" "the vast majority of"? That's not a typical definition.

If you read the article itself (copyright prevents me from quoting the whole thing), it does describe what is taught in the training, and it is what I am claiming.

I can well understand why someone in your position would take issue with the idea that someone in my position doesn't trust the police or their training universally but nothing about the way you've conducted yourself here inspires a great deal of confidence in your own fairness. It is not reasonable to engage in a discussion where I am consistently misrepresented, accused of dishonesty or stupidity, etc. (You are not the only one doing this here, but you are doing it.)

Having served as an officer at a large municipal police department, and now as a scholar who researches policing, I am intimately familiar with police training. I’m not just relying on my own experience, though. I’ve had long conversations with officers and former officers, including firearms trainers and use-of-force instructors, at law enforcement agencies across the country, and they’ve all led to one conclusion: American police officers are among the best-trained in the world, but what they’re trained to do is part of the problem.

...

There are countless variations, but the lessons are the same: Hesitation can be fatal. So officers are trained to shoot before a threat is fully realized, to not wait until the last minute because the last minute may be too late.

But what about the consequences of a mistake? After all, that dark object in the suspect’s hands could be a wallet, not a gun. The occasional training scenario may even make that point. But officers are taught that the risks of mistake are less—far less—than the risks of hesitation. A common phrase among cops pretty much sums it up: 'Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.'

In most police shootings, officers don’t shoot out of anger or frustration or hatred. They shoot because they are afraid. And they are afraid because they are constantly barraged with the message that that they should be afraid, that their survival depends on it. Not only do officers hear it in formal training, they also hear it informally from supervisors and older officers. They talk about it with their peers. They see it on police forums and law enforcement publications. For example, three of the four stories mentioned on the cover of this month’s Police Magazine are about dealing with threats to officer safety.

Officers’ actions are grounded in their expectations, and they are taught to expect the worst.

After one of Grossman's classes, Simonson talked to a person who said the training left her feeling awful and fearful. A main component of the class is teaching officers to be able to 'turn your killing instinct on and off like a faucet.' But the training, she said, never deals with turning off the faucet.

...

Rivard started looking into Grossman's training about two years ago and found it 'inflammatory, disgusting and scary for us as a community.'

Please apply the skepticism you would have about a Fox News article to these articles. I have not reviewed them myself.

However, it would seem that my personal experience of not remembering what actually happened in the simulated shooting I was involved in would seem to validate the testimony offered by the person who teaches 'shoot first. Ask questions later.' As I said, I still don't remember what I actually saw or did on that occasion. It should be said at that time in my life, although I had fired hand guns many times, I had not gone through the training I later received to legally carry a firearm.